Work Ethic

A solid work ethic, especially in this day and age, is absolutely necessary to keeping one's job and surviving in this shaky economy we have been experiencing over the past few years.  This latest deal to raise the debt ceiling will probably not make things any better as the biggest part of the package is cuts in spending which will mostly affect the poor and middle classes.  If anything, more people will lose jobs rather than have new jobs created in which to put people back to work.  It is a complicated issue that I am only mentioning because it has implications which almost none of us will be able to escape.  That is however, unless we devote ourselves to doing the best job at work that we possibly can.  This does not mean becoming a work-aholic.  Rather, it means that while at work during the day, however long that may be, we must strive to provide the best results we possibly can.  Regardless of what field we work in, if can prove that we are a valuable asset, then we will most likely keep our job.  Some may debate with me that regardless of what type of job we do, if a company needs to get rid of a position, they will do it regardless.  This may be so, but they will think twice if they can tangibly see the value that a person provides them.  Doing the best job possible does not mean simply focusing on the part of the job we actually enjoy doing, but focusing our efforts on every aspect of the job, from the moment we get there to the moment we leave. 

The field of work I am in is vastly different from the corporate world only in the fact that I don't sit in an office every day and work for someone else.  The basic tenets of a solid work ethic hold me just as strongly as they do any one who has a job.  There are many individuals who hold jobs that they don't enjoy and as such, don't give their best effort they possibly can.  Who will be the first to lose their job when cuts come?  It will be those who don't give 100% of themselves.   The field that I work in, a self-employed painting contractor, has a much more tangible product than say that of a financial planner or accountant, yet those who satisfy the customer or for that matter their boss, will succeed.  There will always be critics that say the economy has hurt them and their job and they just can't make it.  I believe that it is in part because they don't try.  One of the biggest areas to get hit when the economy went into a recession was that of contractors whether it be general contractors, electricians, plumbers, painters, whatever.  Yet I was able to continue to grow my business continually throughout this whole messy ordeal.  The only reason I was able to do that it is because I strive to provide the best possible product for the customer.  The prices I charged never went down and to date they still remain some of the highest prices for my services in the area I work.  I don't get all the jobs I bid on, in fact I usually only get about 40%.  But it is that 40% that I receive and the satisfaction that I provide to the customer that keeps me working.  People can lament their situation all they want, but there is always a way to succeed and the biggest part of the is doing the best possible job you can at everything you do. 

There is an obvious advantage for a person who loves what they do, it will be easier to do their best job every day than it is for the person who only partially likes or dislikes their job.  I learned from a very early age that if I didn't do my best job all the time, it would affect others and I would not have a job.  From the moment I learned that lesson, I attempted to give 100% to every job I had.  Was this always easy?  Absolutely not, but I learned how to shift my mentality and point of view to get through the day while still doing the best job possible.  It can be draining to give 100% when you don't like what you are doing, but if you can manage to do it with a positive attitude, you will eventually move beyond your job and get something better, it is only a matter of time.  Even if you are a dishwasher in a restaurant, if you give 100% and work your butt off, people will notice and move you to a more amicable position.  It is all a matter of perspective.  As I mentioned before, even if we do give a 100%, there will be times when a company or business simply can't support a given position any more and will release you from their service (nice way of saying firing you).  However, imagine what kind of reference you can get if you gave a 100% at that job when looking for another one.  I guarantee that you will get a much better reference from your former employer than if you had only put in 80% or 75%.   This is a tough job market for everyone and those that succeed are those that make themselves desirable to employers.  The easiest way to do this is to improve your work ethic and show those hiring that you are a valuable asset or even to show your current employer that it would be a grave mistake to let you go.  I can talk about this till I am blue in the face, however, if people do not take heed and implement a solid work ethic in their own lives, nothing will be able to help them.  What kind of work ethic do you have?  Keep that question in mind as you go to work today, push through, and look forward to the weekend. 

The Voice of Reason

Who reading this has reacted spontaneously to someone else's comment or action with less than positive results?  I know I have.  It seems that for many of us, if someone offers criticism, acts unexpectedly, or behaves less than favorably, we react too quickly, not thinking about what we are saying, and possibly cause more damage than good.  I have heard it said time and time again that "you will catch more flies with honey than vinegar."  It might actually be starting to sink in with me after seeing both sides of the spectrum within close proximity to each other.  Now this could be me, but it seems that men seem to act this way more often than women do, but that being said, I have myself seen plenty of women and men "fly of the handle" or "shoot from the hip".   It seems that these reactions are totally avoidable if we are cognizant of what is actually going on and take a step back to look at the situation.  So I guess before I go on, it would only be fair to highlight the instances I personally dealt with before I speak about this topic in depth.  Well, the first was an instance where I decided to use vinegar.  To put it simply, a business associate forwarded part of an email that I sent him without my knowledge.  The only way I found out was that it was part of the email chain that I was then a recipient of.  Needless to say, I wasn't very pleased and lashed out.  I virulently sent him another email calling his actions juvenile and tactless which in turn spawned another email from him lashing back.  I thought about the whole situation, how stupid it was and how in the long run it really didn't mean that much.  A few hours later I called to apologize and to patch everything over.  To be honest, it took much more effort and was much more stressful to deal with the vinegar I had thrown than it would have been if I had simply taken a little time and responded much more nicely.  A week later, I took a little more time dealing with a different situation and lo and behold, it was much easier to deal with when I acted with honey.   With this other situation, I decided to call in my consultant because I felt that if I didn't, I would have snapped and caused more harm than good.  This other situation involved an assistant that I brought on for the summer to help with my work load.  He showed up an hour late for work, and once there, took almost 3 times as long to do something as it should have.  By lunch time I had had it and was ready to send him home without talking to him or anything, I was pissed.  Luckily, I consulted my wife, my new trusted advisor in times like these, and she was able to see the larger picture and get me to act differently than I otherwise would have.  When my assistant returned from lunch, I had a talk with him and at the end he wanted to know what to do next.  I said, "To be honest with you, I want you to go home and get some rest and show up tomorrow ready to work."  I explained why and surprisingly to me, for a recent high school graduate, he said to pay him less because it wasn't fair to me that it took him so long to do something.   The effects of honey work wonders. 

So what about this whole voice of reason?  How does it play into acting with honey vs. vinegar?  We all need to find that voice of reason within our own lives, either a part of us that can look at things objectively or someone in our lives that we trust who can look at situations objectively for us, calm us down, and get us to act differently.  There are many times when we might be able to just step back for a while, look at a situation and see it objectively.  I feel that given time, everyone can build their own objective voice of reason within themselves and use it in regards to every relationship that they are involved in.  It does not happen over night and with every situation being different, our own voice of reason may at times be difficult to call to attention.  Once we can figure out how to step back, cool our virulent tongues, and listen to the rational side of our conscience, we can achieve much greater depth in every relationship we have.  There will be times however, when that voice of reason we have within us is hidden so deep or clouded over by the heat of the moment that we can't personally find a rational way of approaching things.   This happens to everyone, to some more often than others, but it happens.  If we can learn to realize when this is happening and act accordingly, things will turn out better.  So how do we act when we can't find that rational voice within ourselves?

I would posit that we would all do well to find a trusted person within our lives that we could call and talk to in order to get that voice of reason we need.  For me, it is my wife.  She knows how I can fly off the handle, how I don't always look at things objectively.  She has a way of looking at things and pointing things out that I often overlook because my judgement is clouded at the time.  If it wasn't for her the other day, I might have pissed off my assistant to the point where he didn't show up for work anymore.  However, in order to find a trusted person to be a voice of reason for us, we need to be open.  Not to belabor the point, but with any person who we consider to be a voice of reason for us, we must have open and honest communication and trust.  If we can't honestly communicate with that person, how are we supposed to take what they say and use it in our own personal situation?  Furthermore, if we haven't established a deep trust with that person, why would we want to listen to their advice and take it to heart?  Communication and trust are major components of any relationship.  We can not just find a random person to be our voice of reason.  If we randomly call someone on our phone to discuss a problematic situation, we would be less likely to take their advice, a) because they don't know us as closely as a trusted friend or relative and b) because if we don't like their advice, we can hang up and not have to deal with them again. 

The voice of reason is a necessary part of our lives; it is that rational part of ourselves or someone else's advice that keeps us in check and keeps us honest and true.  I feel that we can truly learn something every day, maybe not knowledge as we know it from books and school, but simply from everyday life.  If we can evaluate ourselves honestly and view the world with objective eyes, there are lessons to be learned every day.  Yesterday's lesson for me was how important the voice of reason is.  The two juxtaposed situations I dealt with showed me what I needed to learn in order to advance myself in life.   The important thing is to be open to learning, to be open to exploring different ways of approaching situations and people so that we can improve ourselves and those around us and in the process learn a couple of things.  I have, for the better part of my life, learned things the hard way.  I have since I was little, dived right into everything, regardless of what others have said, and most times, come out either physically or emotionally hurt.  Being physically hurt is not that big of a deal, we heal a lot more quickly and learn more succinctly from physical pain that we often do from emotional.  Emotional pain takes a lot longer to heal and the lessons learned or often more painful and longer lasting than those relating to physical pain.  But regardless, if we have that voice of reason, either within us or close to us in the form of a friend or relative, then perhaps we can learn more quickly and without inflicting pain on others.  Today, if you don't have someone who is your own voice of reason outside of yourself, I urge you to find that person and establish a deep level of trust with them.  What we do today affects how we live in the future.  Don't create a future of frustration and pain, but rather consult that voice of reason and pave yourself a golden road to walk down.

Vulnerability and Trust

I think that almost every single person reading this can remember a time when they were younger that a vulnerability of theirs was exploited by their peers and used against them.  This vulnerability could have been anything from being a little goofy looking, to being awkward playing sports, to simply wearing mix-matched clothes to school.  When we were younger, these vulnerabilities of ours were not something that we relished, in fact, I am sure that most of us were terrified of these vulnerabilities and tried to eradicated them at any cost.   At a younger age, vulnerabilities were something that our peers used incessantly against us, tormenting us if we tried to fight against them and even if we shrugged off their comments, they would not stop unless we somehow embraced that vulnerability and showed that it was part of who we are.  I still remember to this day a vulnerability of mine in seventh grade that others tried to use against me, made fun of me for, and in their own way tormented me.  This was a gap that I had between my two top front teeth that made me look like David Letterman.  It wasn't a permanent gap, but rather one that was created in order to straighten my teeth.  My peers, as I mentioned, tried to make fun of me; but I remember somehow embracing that gap between me teeth (perhaps knowing that it was not permanent) and using it against them.  Instead of reacting negatively, shutting down or lashing out, whenever they made a comment about the gap, I used to take one of those old wooden rulers and shove it in between the gap.  More often than not, this would gross them out and cause the comments to temporarily cease.  It came to the point where I would spontaneously shove the ruler in between my teeth just to see their reaction.  You know what, the comments didn't last long and life moved on.  I witnessed many other instances where my peers were picked on for their flaws and shortcomings and, not being able to embrace those flaws and shortcomings (their own vulnerabilities) they would retract into themselves and shut down.  Little did I know at the time, but most of the kids who were making the comments and tormenting others were simply trying to hide their own shortcomings because they could not themselves embrace them. 

So what does this have to do with us as adults and trust?  How do the two factor together?  Even as an adult, I see many people who are closed off from others, not allowing them to see them for who they truly are.  This could be due to a number of causes.  Either they never got over the torment they received when they were younger and as such have not come to terms with themselves, or even to this day they feel that by exposing themselves, they will be opening up new doors to being tormented and made fun of.  I have learned that for the most part, the only people as adults who will make fun of others are those who do not truly know who they are and feel the need to dominate those around them.  These people aren't worth being around period.  Everyone else will most times be grateful that others have exposed who they are and as a result become more open themselves.  This process of opening up, becoming vulnerable again, is the fastest way to gain the trust of others.  If you see someone open up, showing different aspects of themselves that you didn't know were there, wouldn't you be more likely to trust them?  I would.  It shows that they are willing to be themselves and also shows that they are not hiding anything back and as such should have our trust.  It is a complicated process and one that can leave us feeling awkward and vulnerable, but in the end, proves to increase any bond we may feel with others whether it be in the realm of business, friends, or family.  It all goes back to some comments I made last week about knowing who we are.  This takes it a step further.  We must not only learn who we are and search to understand ourselves, but we must then become comfortable with ourselves so that we may open up to others, become vulnerable, and gain others' trust.  If we do not trust others, how can we call them a friend or business associate.  

Making ourselves vulnerable is perhaps one of the most difficult acts that we can go through.  Mostly, this is because when we were younger we experienced such negativity when we were vulnerable.  If we are to grow in life, however, we must examine those feelings we have about being vulnerable and seek to overcome them.  We must seek to gain the trust of others by opening ourselves up and seeking to be understood by others.  It is these times of being open, of being vulnerable, that we become the truest form of who we are.  If we seek to put up walls and block others out, we will never experience a full level of trust among others.  We may gain others trust partly by the way we act, the way we interact with others, and the way we do business, but unless we are true to ourselves and take down any walls we have erected, we will never establish a deep connection and trust with others around us.  These walls we erect, in part, also block us from ourselves because at a subconscious level, we do not want to come to terms with who we are and those walls, as well as blocking others out, also block out ourselves.  Are these walls easy to take down once built up?  No, but the longer we wait to take them down and examine who we are, the taller and thicker those walls become and it will eventually get to a point where that wall can not be taken down.  If we are to obtain the trust of others and for that matter trust in ourselves we must be like an open field without any structures to block the view of us.  Today, let us all strive to be a little more open with others.  Let us all start to take down the walls we have erected and instead of hiding behind those walls, lets stand on top of the rubble and be open to everyone around us.  Let us gain the trust of others and increase their understanding of who we are, thus increasing our own understanding of ourselves.